Reducing Barriers through Connection and Engagement - Adventures in Advising

In episode 92, Matt Markin chats with Dr. Dana Zahorik, manager of advising services and retention initiatives at Fox Valley Technical College. Dr. Zahorik discusses the creation of CARES Purpose Driving Advising, what it means for educators to be student ready, and challenging the policies and procedures to make a better student experience. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Welcome, everyone to the Adventures and Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and as always, thank you for listening in and supporting this podcast. This is episode 92. And if you're thinking about going to the 2024 NACADA annual conference in Pittsburgh, don't forget to submit a proposal and the call for proposals is open until Thursday, February 22. Now speaking of NACADA conferences our guest today I actually first met at the 2016 NACADA Annual Conference in Atlanta, and that is Dr. Dana Zahorik. Dr. Zahorik is a past NACADA president and served as a fellow for the inaugural excellence in academic advising partnership with the Gardner Institute. She served on multiple committees and leadership positions within NACADA, delivered presentations, written articles and co-edited and was a contributing author of the publication, peer advising and mentoring a guide for advising practitioners. She is currently a consultant for the goddess consulting services, where she has delivered workshops as well as conducted program reviews for a variety of institutions. Dr. Zahorik has spent her entire professional career in a higher education, advising and counseling capacity, and currently serves as manager of advising services and retention initiatives at Fox Valley Technical College. She recently assisted in implementing a college wide proactive advising model. There are a collaborative effort with faculty and academic advisors. In addition, she is the chair of the college wide retention and completion committee coordinates and provides faculty advisor training and development and develop an implemented FTTC is proactive advising model and peer advisor program. Dana serves as a member of the digital equity committee, and is the Wisconsin Technical College Student Success administration liaison for FTTC. Dana, welcome to the podcast. 

Dana Zahorik

Thanks for having me. 

Matt Markin

So I'm not sure if you remember how we met, but I will always remember. So it was 2016. It was at the awards reception. My colleague Star and I went to the conference and went to the awards reception. And we decided we wanted to set at one of the tables in the back because it was a quick exit. That's where you are setting and you introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Dana introduced to the institution you're at. And then towards the end, you were like, Hey, I actually have another meeting. I got to go to and and excuse yourself. And then after that, we ended up going to the keynote. welcome reception keynote. And they're up on stage, you go and we're like, Oh, my goodness. That's who we're setting at our table. But you never introduce yourself as Hi, I'm Dana. I'm the NACADA incoming president. And I remember my colleague Starr and I were talking about that. Because it was almost like a refresher, refreshing to kind of know, okay, sometimes people always give their title. And it was like you were just like, I'm Dana. And in addition, you'll find out that I'm also the incoming president.

Dana Zahorik  
Thank you. And I appreciate you sharing that story because I remember when I was coming in as President, I wanted to be approachable, like so many of the other past presidents and you know, Jayne Drake, Jennifer Joslin, I could just walk up to them, and they were so easy to talk to. And I wanted to make sure that I had that same presence. So thanks for that story. 

Matt Markin  
It was such a nice surprise ever, like, Oh, my goodness. And we saw you at the aquarium reception that they had. And remember going up to you going like, we didn't know you were going to NACADA president. But, can you tell us a little bit more about your background, your path into higher ed? 

Dana Zahorik  
I actually like to start with my story in my high school years, because I think what happened between my high school guidance counselor, and through my own academic journey, it really led me to fall in love with higher education. So I went to my high school guidance counselor, and I told him I wanted to be a counselor. He said, I don't think you want to do that data, because it's, you know, eight years of school. Plus, you're really fast at typing. I just aged myself because I'm using the word typing. He thought I should be a stenographer. And I just was thinking, Oh, that's devastating. I then went into school as pre law which is ridiculous. I can't even tell you why I chose pre law. It just sounded good. I thought maybe I'm good at arguing. Went into school. Within a semester I changed to broadcasting ironic right now we're in the podcast, I quickly found out that that was not my my best goal either. And it really was my faculty advisor that picked up on my disengagement. I was darling in class talking to my best friend and my pit class, totally not engaged. And he pulled me aside and started asking me all the right questions. And the first thing he said is, what do you want to do and what do you want to be? And I'm like, I want to be a counselor. Why aren't you doing that? And So I got to tell them my story ended up sharing, I was a first generation college student first one and my family had never, you know, gone to college, nobody knew what a FAFSA was, when I was filling that out, I did it by myself pretty sure I messed it up several times. And it was just I miss every deadline, I was probably your worst nightmare for a student came home every weekend because I missed my family. So I literally made every mistake that a college student possibly could make. But I did take that advice from my faculty advisor. And I did change my major to counseling, in higher education counseling. And that was the first step to really feeling good about my classes and feeling good about being just working towards that goal. And that really made all the difference in the world for me, he also picked up on I was a 3.8 student in high school number three in my class, so nobody would have probably thought I was an average student at all. And what happened is, I had a 2.0 My first semester and this is back in the day when they would mailed report cards home to your parents. And my dad wasn't really happy about that report card, and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. So again, my faculty advisor started asking me the right questions. He says, Tell me how you study. And I was like, Well, I study the night before I read the chapters in the night before, all the things we tell our students not to do. But it worked for me in high school, he had me enroll in a college success class, and that hands down, made all the difference. And then I was back up to 3.65. And the my GPA the fine semester. So that's a pretty significant jump. And it's someone that asked me all those great questions, I probably wouldn't be sitting here today. Fast forward, I ended up getting an internship with Fox Valley Technical College, and I fell in love with the two year college system, I had not been exposed to it because it was in the four year college system. I love the culture at Fox Valley. And so literally, I graduated 1995 I got offered a job within a week. And so that was that was a great journey for me, went on to get my doctorate later on in life. And I had two kids, another one on the way finishing up that doctorate and then my dad passed away in the middle of it. And so again, it was reinforced, how important the people that are around you, your supporters, the relationships that you've built, I don't think that I would have survived that semester. If it wasn't for my cohort. So those cohort models work, they put pressure on you. They're like, Dana, where are you, you know, and they just kind of carried me along. And so my whole entire higher education journey was obviously surrounding all these people, besides just my professors that kept me going forth in my journey. So now I'm at my 29th year at Fox Valley, I still love what I do. My kids are always saying I want a job like you mom or you love to wake up and go to work. 

Matt Markin  
If I remember correctly, I listened to like a webinar that that you were on. And you were mentioning the whole college kind of college struggle. And then your mom was one that was like, come home and your dad was like, nope...

Dana Zahorik  
Exactly. Yeah, I was I was a mama's girl. And the minute things were hard, of course, she wanted me just to come home and I'll protect you and I would probably be still a waitress in pickerel, Wisconsin had I come home. But I was glad that my dad had the tough love. And between that my faculty advisor encouraged me. The other piece I didn't mention was I was so involved in high school, I was literally joined every club, I was in ski club and only had skied once I just wanted to be involved, involved involved. And when that came to college, all of a sudden, I didn't know I was this little tiny fish in a big bowl. I didn't know where I fit in. And so the faculty advisor asked me Well, what did you like to do in high school? I said, Well, I was a cheerleader. Shocking. And he's, well, why wouldn't you try out here and I thought to myself, I would never be good enough to be a college cheerleader. And he said, try it. And I did try out and I didn't make the cheerleading team, which then forced me to stay there and get more engaged with the college community.

Matt Markin  
And yeah, not like that. Your faculty advisor asked the question of like, how do you study? So I think sometimes we'll ask students the question of like, you know, did you study it's like, yes. We don't ask like the follow up of like, well, how do you? I know, a friend of mine, who was an advisor before he would ask the question, he would tell the student like, I know, this sounds like stalkerish. But if there was a camera on you, during the times that you said that you were studying, were you 100% studying 100% of the time, and then that's where then it's like, wow, maybe I was on my phone, or, you know, I was talking to a friend and maybe I didn't do it as much, or this is exactly how I was studying and that's where you can pinpoint well, maybe try this or this instead. 

Dana Zahorik  
And think about that. Like, I'm aging myself again. We didn't have the smartphones. I had a big on back then. But I didn't have all those distractions. Yeah. I could choose to put music on which I wasn't. I was one of the quiet study years. And so I didn't have all the distractions that our students have nowadays, I was listening to another podcast and a student said, Listen, we get trained during COVID. To manage through distractions, they literally were looking at several screens, and while they were in classes, and so it's, it's hard for our students now to find that concentration and overlook all those distractions. 

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and I think we're gonna we'll come back to that. I think I have a question. I'll ask you later on that I think connects to that. But I want to ask you this question. For those that may not know how would you describe a Fox Valley Technical College?

Dana Zahorik  
Sure. So we are a two year public. We are the third largest technical college in the state of Wisconsin, we are very close with our business, industry and community. So that's one thing really unique about us. It actually really helped us during COVID. Because even though enrollment had gone down our business and industry clients are still needing us and asking us majority of our students are part time. So that's probably unique for us. And our average age is 24. And what that means is these folks have jobs and families to take care of. And so our role really is to help them figure out how to juggle all that. One piece I'm really excited and proud of is the fact that our current president grew up in the advising world. So he supervised Student Services and advising and made his way up. And then our VP of Student Services also used to be the supervisor advisor. And so I just literally have this wonderful cheerleading team. Same thing with our board, our board actually approved a million dollar budget approval for us to hire a new counselor and three additional advisors to help get that ratio down. So they they knew the significance of how that ratio makes a difference. And they 100% support it. So that's pretty exciting to be part of that.

Matt Markin  
Oh, absolutely. I'm sure you're making people jealous right now because and for you like your your title is a manager of advising services and retention initiatives. So tell us more about that. What does that all entail?

Dana Zahorik  
Well, I became a manager in 2018. So prior to that, I was a public safety advisor. So I was knee deep in the advising piece fell in love with it. And when I had the opportunity to move up into management, I said yes, because I love to be at that table and helping make some of the decisions. So that was exciting. As of just recently, though, I'm gonna say about a year ago, I started just looking at retention plans. But because we didn't have a formal retention plan at Fox Valley, just started reading other people's plans. And I thought, you know, it'd be nice to put together a plan for us. And so I started writing one out, and then I went to my VP and President and they were supportive of me starting to implement some of these ideas, put together a committee of folks cost college to help look at those retention initiatives. And I can't tell you enough how much excitement that has brought, because it brings the fact that advising is tied to retention. But there's all these other pieces and players. So everybody starts to realize retention is every single one of our roles in one way, shape or form. So that's been a really rewarding piece, I would also have to say I have like the Navy Seals of advisors, they do not focus on registration, I'd actually say that's a very small piece of their job. They actually just intuitively know to look at the needs of their students. And it varies by program. So for example, it students, we have quite a few it students that have showed up on our probation suspension lists. And so we're looking at oh, what can we do differently to help that particular population and I don't even have to tell these advisors to look at that stuff. They dive into data. And they're just like go into the classrooms. They go where the students are, they get in their spaces, rather than waiting for them to come to them. I'm also pretty excited. Recently we just did some cool collaborations, we realized that a third of our students that receive financial aid we used to allow them to get a voucher for their books two weeks prior to the semester start. Well then we realize that's also when a lot of the books are on backorder you know they're out. We know how this goes right? So we created a new system, it's called the IPTC charge program. So any student at the college now can have a $700 stipend. And they can get it several weeks before the semester starts. So they can charge it against it goes on their tuition bill. So it's little things like that, that people like, hey, why don't we try something different? Why don't we challenge the policies or procedures that we have to try to make it a better experience for students. The other part about my job is someone whose culture that retention and completion committee, but I'm also the Wisconsin Student Services Administration advocate. And that's been rewarding too, because I can see what all the other technical college systems are doing, we can share best practices, I learned a lot, I just like Anakata. I don't have a ton of original ideas, and literally just sharing ideas and, you know, using ideas that other folks have already used successfully at their own institutions.

Matt Markin  
And I guess what that like liaison position? Is it something like that? It's like a, like a listserv, you do monthly meetings. How does that all work? 

Dana Zahorik  
You do regular meetings, there, like quarterly meetings. And then we do have a listserv as well. In addition to that, though, I'm also part of the Wisconsin Technical College System Advisor network and we meet monthly, a lot of us are implementing workday right now. So that's also helpful, we can say, Hey, how are you doing that as you're implementing workday. Another piece about my job I forgot to mention is my love is training development. And so I've been really involved in creating training and development opportunities for both our faculty advisors, as well as anybody in the college, when we create training, we just invite everybody because our administrative assistants need to understand the revising process. Everybody up and down that hallway, should really understand how we connect with students and how we advise them.

Matt Markin  
For sure. And I think kind of tying into how your advisors go about connecting with the students engaging them. You know, for you, you're big on educators and advisors being student ready, rather than students being college ready. And you know, when you talk about how the student body has changed over the years, so what do you what do you mean exactly by that? With to be student ready? And how do we do that? 

Dana Zahorik  
I think we've been programmed in higher ed is that there's a set of standards we expect students to have when they come in, that's why we have ACTs and we have Accuplacer. And we have all these placement exams and our years back, we would say you have to meet these standards before you can come. And if you don't meet those standards, you have to do this, this and this in order to come here. Well, now, we've noticed that our students are coming to us even more challenge coming out of the pandemic. And so we can either choose to say, No, you're not ready, you can't come. Or we can say wait, you're not ready. But let's help you get ready. This comes back to that example of where my faculty advisor said, you know, it sounds like you might not have the study skills, or do you want to ask a student like, how do you take notes, show me how you take notes. And if you just see it's a scrambled mess? Well, then it's my job to help you get ready by teaching you how to take notes, or putting a time management grid out there for you simple things is I've had to work with students that were going to drop a class because they were frustrated with an instructor. And I'll say to them, did you talk to that instructor? It could be something so small, and they'll say, No, I'm not comfortable with that. So then I bring up the example of like, well, when you get out into the workforce, there's going to be a time where you don't agree with your boss. And it's an opportunity for you to say to your boss and very respectful way, hey, you know, could we look at it this way? Or can we try something differently? So I like to challenge their thinking a little bit about that, to prepare them for beyond higher education too.

Matt Markin  
know, I think that's a great example. Sometimes I'll ask you, especially if it's, you know, after the fact and, you know, maybe, you know, we're looking at their past semester and looking at their grades. And I'll ask him what to do. How do you do the notes? Or have you met with the professor? And if I get some of the like, the you well know where I tried and I'm like, okay, then this is the grade that you did earn, you know, you want to be able to say like at the end of it, I did 100% of what I could have done, and I know that I deserve this grade? 

Dana Zahorik  
Yes, I've even had people, I help them draft an email, if that's my role is to help you draft an email so that you can get your point across respectfully and professionally. I think our faculty do want us to have that dialogue, right, that's all part of the learning process. They don't want just people to sit in their chairs and absorb and not have any interactions with them. Like that wouldn't be great for either one of you. 

Matt Markin  
When students end up saying like, you know, I take notes and then they show you and it's like, Whoa, there's a lot of inconsistent going on. How do you help them like, you know, develop a plan that or their way of doing notes that could work better for them?

Dana Zahorik  
So I when I was an advisor actually pulled out I had a Cornell note system, a template, and I would pull it out and I would demonstrate from I said, let's say our subject is biology. And I would actually show them how you can draw different concepts on a writing tablet. And then I would say, Well, when you're in a lecture, it would show them how to utilize the core Cornell note system, I would show them how then you cover up the keywords. And then when you go back to study, then I send them away and say, I would like you to try this, try this out in the classroom. And then let's come back next week. And you can tell me what you thought of it. And then I also teach them not only how to take the notes, but if you actually are looking at your notes for 1520 minutes a day, each day, you should not have to cram it will just already be in your long term memory. And so just having them try it, and it doesn't work for everybody, but then we can try a different note taking system. But if you think about that, did anybody teach us that in high school? That was like, here's how you should take notes, Matt, no, no, not tell you that or managing your time, you might have heard, you know, a little lecture. But literally laying out a grid and laying out study times or, you know, work times and finding that balance is important.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, I remember like middle school in high school, I was trained in terms of what to put on my notes was, whatever, my personal professor, my teacher in middle school in high school, wrote on the board, if they said, This is important, then I would write it down, if they didn't say that I didn't write it. And I learned my lesson when I got to college. 

Dana Zahorik  
Or there's the opposite extreme, where people write every single word down that the teacher is saying, well, then you're so busy writing notes that you aren't actually taking in information. Yeah, I also talked about that the whole way we take information in so if you are just reliant on a lecture to learn, you're really only going to retain about 10% of that. And so we look at that little learning pyramid, thank goodness for my learning Psych class, because I still remember all that. But you can literally talk about and show them. So when you get to the bottom of that pyramid, the most effective thing is when you can teach another concept to somebody, hence the importance of study buddies. And so I just want them to see that like, you can't just rely on one method. How many times have you heard a student say, well, that professor didn't teach me anything? Well, it's not their sole responsibility to make sure you learn the information.

Matt Markin  
And I guess connected to that, you know, you've talked about, you know, your experience growing up, you know, your family background experience in college, you know, working with students, you know, hopefully helping them to be more successful throughout their time at the at the institution, what's your thoughts on bringing, like the parent or guardian family members, how to incorporate them into conversations with students? 

Dana Zahorik  
I might have an unpopular view on that. I 100%, feel like your supporters should be part of your conversations. Number one at orientation. It's very overwhelming if our students take away again, like that 10% of information and resources thrown at them. That's probably good. So to me, if you have a supporter, that's also hearing that information. And also think about their, their, by their supporters, most of the time, they're with us for a very short period of time. And so if you understand what their support system looks like, what that culture looks like, or the lack thereof of, then you know how to support them differently. Now, I think there's a fine line, I do remember, during COVID, during some of our virtual museum registrations, we'd be talking to a student that all of a sudden a little head would pop in, and you could see, you know, the parent, oh, that must be your mom or dad, I think we want to make sure that the student is still doing the work, but they're the ones that are registering for classes, and they're the ones that are creating the time management grids. Every once in a while you get a parent that like poses as the student and you know, writes emails back. Those are inappropriate parent interactions, but I think there's a place for them at the table. 

Matt Markin  
And earlier talking about like collaborations, and I know for you, you've created something called cares, purpose driving advising. Can you talk more about that?

Dana Zahorik  
Sure. So it's like an internal conversation that rolled into this model that I just wrote on paper. So I basically took what we're doing, and I put it on paper. So I mentioned that I was a public safety advisor for 23 years. So the department chair and another advisor and I was sitting down and we were talking, we said, you know, that was really a great culture that we created for those students. And retention was great. We had students that felt like they belong there. Relationship Building was strong. And so let's just put this on paper, what we think it is, so cares actually is an acronym for a couple of different things. And I can walk you through what some of those are, basically, but I can tell you the philosophy at FoxValley is like, advising just doesn't happen at the advising office, it literally starts at the point when a student inquires with a college. So I think our admissions folks advice, they hand off to our advisors, our faculty advisors. We even have our maintenance person the other day I ran into a student in the hallway that did not speak English and he interpreted for them. You can't Tell me that that student might have walked out the door had he not taken the time to interact with that student and, again, create that culture that you belong here. So, the first acronym is C for connect and engage. So it's all about access. And the first thing we want people to know what facts Valley is, who your people are, and where to find them. And we had PeopleSoft, so we did not have the capability initially to let people know who their advisor was until later on in the system. And what we wanted to do is okay, at that point of application, we want you to know who your person is, because you will have questions. So not only are you assign an Admissions Advisor that's assigned by program, and then is linked to an advisor who is assigned by programs. So it's a natural collaboration there, we send a postcard up that says, Welcome. It's very casual, I'm going to use Lindsey Fox, for example, she's one of our advisors, she has a cute picture her little Corgi in there. And it's just, you know, letting her know, we're real people. And we're looking forward to seeing you. So the whole message is for real people who want to connect with you. And here's our contact information. So we start early, engaging, and also my staff for me to say a lot, but I don't want any dead ends. So if you're out of the office, you're out of office, she'll point to somebody else who can help that student, it can't be I'm out of the office, see you in three weeks, like that's a pet peeve of mine, because students typically have just in time needs and they want to get those taken care of. So that's kind of the connect and engage piece about that. None, then the a is an access, group planning exploration. We're a two year college. So when someone declares a major, you have to declare a major you can't declare undecided by us. And so if we just left them at their own device, they would go into their major. And we really don't know if they're undecided or not, because they can't declare that. So we have what's called a master advising plan. And every student is offered a master advising plan, they're not required to do it. But we do know, based on our data that the students that do complete the master advising plan are more successful than those who aren't they get through to graduation. But on that master advising finally asked him on a scale of one to 10, how certain are you about your career choice. And if it's anything less than the 10, I want to know why that is. And so this is our opportunity to either help them with job shadowing referrals to faculty advisors as their mentors, because all of our faculty have experience in the field, and they can speak directly to some of those experiences. So the R is reducing barriers and utilizing referrals. I'm going to go back to that master advising plan again. And there we have a checklist called factors affecting college success. If you would have asked me when I was that young college student coming in, if you would have said, Dana, what do you think you're going to have problems with in college? I'd be like, I don't know, I wouldn't have guessed all the things that I share with you. But on that factors affecting college success, it lists things that you might stumble over, it might be is it a transportation concern? Are you a single parent and might need daycare assistance. So all those things are listed. And it's pretty rare when somebody leaves that blank. So that automatically tells me how I can help you what kind of resources and then in some cases, I know, I'm gonna have to case manage you, because of the number of things that you've identified. I love it when our faculty advisors are several that actually make this a class assignment. And it's, it's a beautiful thing, because when it's required the students like, Ah, I gotta do this master revising plan, but almost always afterwards, like, thank you so much, that was very meaningful, because we also map all their classes through graduation. Then the E actually stands for engaging early on. I talked a little about that earlier. But two weeks prior to the semester, start all the advisors send a note out to the new students saying, hey, school starting what do you need help with? We just did a very broad, knowing that we aren't going to be the helper for all of those items. But at least we're asking the question like what what could possibly be on your mind as you're getting ready to start school? Again, we visit the classrooms, make sure that we're actively engaged all those new students, they literally can't get away from us. Let's put it that way. We, the technology is where a lot of our students stumble. So we actually just for the first time starting next week, I'm so excited to see how this goes. But we're having a tech fest, because you know, you might call the help desk when you need help or email somebody but many times you're on your device and you just want to get it figured out. So tech fest is to help with anything technology. We have all kinds of people on call to help them get to campus locations. And then we still have the virtual health they can call or email if they want to. But yeah, we're pretty excited about that. And then finally, early our economic alerts, which probably we're already aware of, are clever issues with our faculty is key to helping them be successful. And when they put those alerts, and then we get to be invited on to that process too. And so the finally, the letter s in the cares model stands for student engagement and completion. And I think that's the challenging part for us is we really have to stay engaged, we can't just engage with them initially, and then let them at their own devices. So we actually built a communication calendar, where every advisor is communicating with our students about really important things that action items that we need them to do. And we do it in different modalities, texting has been very successful for us. So I highly suggest that if you don't have texting, that's a really great thing. We also have some advisors that are piloting something called the check in checkout, which is a pretty great idea that I really do, I'm really surrounded by a smart group of people that come up with these ideas on their own. So when a student is coming to New Registration, they do a check in and here's all the materials you need to just kind of know that we're going to be talking about, the student attends a new student registration, and afterwards, they have a checkout. And they just say as a reminder, your some things we've talked about, and then the survey, so it's just a really great way of continuing to stay connected with those particular students. So at the end of the day, we do know our students learning styles, their motivation, all that's different. But I feel like this model that we've kind of created at Fox Valley, behind the scenes is something official is just what we do, I think is just really essential to keeping our students engaged. And it's essential to the retention of our students as well. I should come up for air, so if you have other questions.

Matt Markin  
I liked that you were able to yeah, really kind of describe everything that goes on. I know, as you're talking, the question that kept coming up as like, amazing, I should ask this is, I think on an individual based on advisory, can you basically utilize this and in any student they meet with, but some might be thinking, Well, my caseload is you know, 1000 students, you know, 900, you know, I would want to be able to do this for everyone. Is it something you think can can be adapted no matter? What type of environment that advisors in? 

Dana Zahorik  
That public safety advisor was a perfect example, because our advisor ratio runs everywhere, from 550, to 850, for example, and so you can't meet with all those students individually, which is why some of our faculty advisors assist us, we we use that as a classroom project, and we can spread those meetings out throughout the semester, during our downtimes. That works, and then not every student does take advantage of it, either. So it's manageable that way. I think it's been pretty successful as we've worked cleverly with the faculty advisors. So that's been a key for us.

Matt Markin  
And maybe sorta connected, but maybe not so much. But when I hear the word collaboration a lot, you know, or working with, you know, faculty advisors, you know, as from a student perspective, you know, we know, okay, there's a professional advisor, a faculty advisor, maybe there's a peer advisor, maybe there's an academic coach, there's a success coach, you know, all these different individuals that are have some part in trying to help this students get to graduation, hopefully be engaged the whole time. From a student perspective with all of these sometimes tons of resources, tons of individuals that might be reaching out to them, Do you think there might be some confusion students might have?

Dana Zahorik  
Yeah, I'm sure that gets overwhelming. So when we assign our Admissions Advisor the messages once they've been admitted that they know that they have an advisor because they get that postcard, so they already know, this is my person. When we host our students, student registrations. A lot of our faculty are part of those new student registrations. And when we would do our introduction, so Cory McCollum was a faculty advisor that I worked with. And when I would do my introduction, I would say, I'm Dana, I'm here to help you with anything student success that gets in the way. So basically, study skills, time management, if you having a bad day, I'm your person sit. But if you ask me some very specific questions about the career, you know, I want to be on a SWAT team, etc. Well, that's Cory. Cory has been in the field. And so if you have any career questions, so we introduced ourselves as this dynamic duel that can save you, and guess what sometimes they'd go to Cory, and he'd say, Oh, you might want to go to Dana for that. And then sometimes they'd ask me a career question. And I would say, let's, let's get Cory involved in that conversation. So it's not just a coal handoff, they already know who all these folks are in one way, shape or form. There's also programs that close boot camps and criminal justice is one of those and the boot camps. What they do is it's the week before school that bring all the students in so that you also don't think you're strangers the first day of classes, you're meeting your classmates, all the faculty are there they introduce themselves and share their career background. So if you know that you want to go in a certain career route, you already know which faculty members have been in that area. And then we make sure they we do a tour so they're familiar with. The TLC is our Teaching Learning Center and our tutoring lab. We take them there, because you could talk about the three lab. But if you've never seen it or been there, it's a wonderful opportunity to just really show them the resources. And then finally, before they leave, you make sure they can check their email, they can log into their Maya BTC. And then we use Blackboard for our LMS students get back, we just assume, Oh, you're good with technology, right? You're right out of school. Now we throw so much technology at them. We make sure they can log into that access to electronic books before we always like we're going to keep you captive until you know all this stuff, and then you can go. So yeah, that's a really great corrective activities going on throughout the college.

Matt Markin  
I said, I'm glad I'm happy to hear like how involved the faculty are, because I can imagine from a student perspective, you know, they might be intimidated when they hear faculty or see them, and maybe this helps ease them in. 

Dana Zahorik  
I would say we definitely have a very strong faculty. And it's been that way ever since I've been at the college, thankfully.

Matt Markin  
And I just kind of go into more about you incident, let's maybe talk about Anakata. You know, we were talking about previously at the very beginning about being the kind of a pass on counter president. But can you talk more about your involvement in NACADA? 

Dana Zahorik  
Sure. So we all know, now that I was president and 1617, you shared that. I actually went to my first kind of conference in 1998. I went to the Summer Institute, and the time Dr. Charlie Nutt. That was our group leader. So that was when he was a faculty member. And I think he was a VP of Student Services if every call. And then Nancy king who recently passed away, and she was one of the godmothers advising. So I went up in a hot air balloon with those two. And it was just kind of indicative of my journey at NACADA. You're like lifting up, this is the inaugural introduction to NACADA. And from there on, I didn't miss conferences, except for the birth of two of my children. And then of course, the pandemic. But I did attend that virtually still. So that was my introduction to it. And what I realized about anakata is, you know, it's not just going to the conferences, it was that networking piece that was key to me. I literally my little secret's out, when I go to the annual conference, I have a list of people I want to talk to, and I have a list of things that I want to see if I can get answers to. That's just what I've done throughout all the years. Then I got tapped on the shoulder and someone asked if I wanted to be part of what we now call advising communities, but it was the commission interest group. I started out involvement in the two year college commission and the faculty advising, graduate into the peer advising. And then I fell into the council, which was hands down my favorite favorite leadership position, highly recommend that you work towards that. It's a boots on the ground grassroots work. It just made like I was really making a difference in association and just really enjoyed that representation. I've been a fellow for the Excellence in academic advising project, very rewarding. And I'm a faculty for the administrator Institute, which I go as faculty, but I learned so much from other people. So if you like love to learn from others, and problem solve, those are really great opportunities.

Matt Markin  
And how did you involve them in some of the publications that you've done?

Dana Zahorik  
Well, because I was the the peer advising commission interest group lead, I think that's where someone said, Would you be interested in this, and I also my doctoral dissertation was on peer advising. So I like contributing to those. And I also know, I'm a good problem solver. I think that's what my gift is. And so anytime you put me on a committee where you needed to solve a problem, that's where I feel like I flourish, and love to seek out different ideas and best practices to help figure out a solution. So I'm a committee worker, I enjoy that a lot.

Matt Markin  
Everyone brings in their specific strengths. Absolutely. What was your time as president like?

Dana Zahorik  
Well, I mean, I wasn't at least I wasn't involved, the pandemic was tough. So kudos to those presidents that led through that that was very challenging. And it's interesting, because when I came in, as the President, I thought, I'm going to change the world. I again, I had my ideas. And you have to keep in mind like you are representing the members. So it can't be Dana's agenda. It has to be what your members need. And at the time, I remember that we did not have a great diverse leadership ballot. And so I really took that as one of the initiatives to try to focus on that. That was when we were also like, the inaugural opening of the research center was involved in that. So those are all really exciting times. Our first international conference was happening around that time. So there's a lot of fresh new things happening, new partnerships, so it was an exciting moment to be part of that. And it's also it's probably one of the most challenging yet rewarding leadership opportunities of my lifetime. Because you're not leading people from one institution and one philosophy and one mission, it's, it's a variety people from different institutions, all coming together for a common cause we have different leadership styles. And so I learned so much. And it helped me then when I went into management in 2018. Leading that diverse group of volunteers to by the way, these aren't paid people, they're volunteers. So it was a great opportunity. I would anybody who thinks, oh, goodness, I could never do that. That was me for a while, I thought I was not an administrator. I wasn't advisor and academic counselor at the time. So don't doubt yourself. You have what it takes to be a leader at NACADA. And if you need me to nominate you, I can do that computer person,

Matt Markin  
I think is great advice for any NACADA member. But let's say you have a new member starting out and you know, they're getting all these emails from NACADA. And they go to a conference and like, oh my gosh, yeah, how do I navigate that? What's your advice to them?

Dana Zahorik  
Yes, the annual conference is large. And sometimes you can't even find your own people there. So there's a lot of neat opportunities to do dinner, dinner, get togethers, anything that you can do socially, I also if you're sitting in a conference session, and you're talking to the person next to you, don't hesitate just to ask them, you want to hit dinner tonight or go for a walk. Because those are the times right make connections and traded business cards and, and just made those necessary connections. I also say start small. I love the Summer Institute experience because it's a smaller group, anywhere from 150 to 200 people. And you can come with a small group, it's very engaging, and it's easy to network. And you're also going to solve a problem for your own institution. So if something like that is intimidating, start small, you can go to the regional conferences, I think that's just a good opportunity to dip your toe in. But don't ever doubt yourself that that you couldn't take on these leadership, everybody had to start somewhere?

Matt Markin  
For sure. Now, what about someone who maybe has been in higher ed or academic advising for a number of years or in an economy for a number of years, and they know that that's something they want to still be involved in, but they're getting to the point where maybe I'm getting a little burnout? What's your advice to that type of person? 

Dana Zahorik  
if I mean, there's times where I've taken on too much. And I think you have to be honest with yourself, too, there were times were simple, where I would just say to if I was asked to be on a committee, I would just say I might not be able to take that on right now. I also had asked to be on the finance committee by Charlie and I said, I just that was just not something that really interested me or that I was excited about. So it's okay to say no. I also think it's really important to ask about the time commitment. So if you look at some of the advising communities, and someone who said, Would you like to be part of this, you know, she would throw your name and asked about the time commitment and ask people that have done it, because it might not be as much of a time commitment as you think. And sometimes people think, Oh, I have to go to the annual conference to be part of it, you don't, and making sure that you talk to people who've already done those positions, talk to the executive office. And then if there's something you're interested in, that you've not been asked to do, throw in your maintenance, I'd really love to be part of this. And chances are there's a place for you.

Matt Markin  
For sure. And as we end this interview, I wanted to share with listeners a quote by you in a 2008 academic advising today's issue, and that quote, which you ended up the ending, it kind of sums up the proactiveness that you have for your students, for the work that you do, the staff that you oversee the training that you do, and that is advising students is similar to tending a fire, the fire goes out when unattended, and fortunately, an account of members have the resources to build and maintain a large and warm fire that can be shared by all that was from 2008. It's 2024. Now, do you think that quote is still accurate? Oh,

Dana Zahorik  
Absolutely. I think I think how we build the fire is a little different. I think our student bodies, we know this working in higher ed, they've changed consistently, you know, over the years, and if we make assumptions about we think our students need that's our worst mistake is we have to ask the students what they need in a variety of formats, whether it's focus groups, I can't tell me times we've created things that were like this is exactly what the students did, and then they don't use it. So just making sure that as we're building the fire, we're asking the people that we should be asking to make sure we're meeting their needs, and not just making some of those assumptions.

Matt Markin  
Great way to end in this interview. Dan, I thank you so much for being on the podcast today.